By Sarah Spaulding Avento

I open my body to you. 
           Half-eaten 
Jack - o -lantern 
           a smile tilts through 
the cracks. The fans buzz 
           and you say it’s too early 
to think of fall. 
           Just this morning a tropical storm. 
Houseplants weeping. 
           The skin of our house lashed. 
My car stopped in 
           the middle of the interstate. Nothing 
but white wind on either side. 
           Those drops fresh picked 
oranges sauntering up from Florida. 
           The lawn carries a bushel 
and you, arms laden 
           sticky and sweet.

Sarah Spaulding Avento is a recent graduate of the MFA program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and was formerly an Editorial Assistant at The Believer and LitHub. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, Red Ogre Review, Sheepshead Review, This Former Present Glory: An Anthology of Honest Spiritual Literature, and in a travel guide to Southwestern Iceland. She now lives back in her beloved Tennessee mountains and will never again take trees for granted.